PORTOLA, Calif.  Outside this community in the eastern Sierra Nevada lies one of the West's great trout lakes. At least it was until northern pike, a voracious consumer of trout, invaded and then defied costly efforts to eradicate it.

The pike so thoroughly infested Lake Davis that state wildlife managers poisoned the water 10 years ago and killed all the fish, including the lake's trophy-sized trout. Other lakes around the country have gotten similar treatments, but never before was a town's water supply poisoned.

Health concerns and bitter protests marked that nine-month ordeal in 1997-98. Word spread in the trout world: avoid Lake Davis. Tourism and local businesses suffered. But trout came back in abundance after the state restocked the lake with one million fish. And, in 1999, so did pike.

Now, eight years later, the state wants to poison Lake Davis again, vowing to do the job right.

"Hopefully it'll work this time," says Tammy Milby, owner of Gold Rush Sporting Goods, who depends on fishermen and campers for 85% of her business. "I don't know if the community, the businesses, can handle another failure."

Milby got $33,000 from a $9.1 million settlement approved by the California Legislature in 1998 after what wildlife officials concede was a botched effort to get rid of the pike. It wasn't enough, she says. "We're all losing now. People are just not coming to the lake," she says. "Where do we get compensated for our losses now. I'm just barely paying the bills."

Pike not only could destroy the lake's trout but also migrate into waterways draining into the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta above San Francisco Bay, threatening California's $2 billion-a-year salmon industry, says Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the state Fish and Game Department.

State learned from mistakes

Bill Powers was mayor of this town of 2,200 during the first poisoning. He and three others swam in the lake, chained themselves to a buoy and flirted with hypothermia in an attempt to stop it. Now, he's convinced the state learned from its mistakes and has a better plan.

"No one wants to see it done. It's sad that it has to happen," Powers says. "But after 10 years of chasing down answers, I think at least we can say it's going to be a one-shot deal and pose no health effects to the public."

A group called Save Lake Davis thinks unexplained illnesses were a consequence of the 1997 poisoning, including higher rates of cancer and learning disabilities, says Dan Wilson, an organizer. Research has not supported those claims, but Wilson says that's because state officials are satisfied that Lake Davis' water is safe even though trace amounts of poison remain.

"I agree with the scientists who say there's no safe levels of carcinogens in drinking water," he says. The city hasn't depended on lake water since 1997, but Wilson believes chemicals reached an aquifer that supplies wells.

Sarah Bensinger, owner of a store and campground near the lake, says Save Lake Davis represents fringe opposition and most people are eager to get the pike out. "I still get calls wanting to know are we going to blow up the lake, is it going to be drained, is there still poison in it," she says. "More harm's been done to me in the last eight years by not doing anything than if they took care of the issue right now."

The state's first pike eradication plan was flawed, but officials also did a poor job of public relations, Martarano says. This time, the department staffed an office in Portola, held several public meetings and involved residents in planning. It hired an economic consultant to assess local impacts.

When pike reappeared two years after the first poisoning, the state concluded that the fish escaped into streams and springs that drain into the lake, then returned once the chemicals dispersed.

This time, Martarano says, all the lake's tributaries, even small pools in the mountains, were identified with satellite technology. They'll be poisoned first, shortly after Labor Day, then the lake itself will be treated, before tributaries get a second dose.

Want tourists to return

The same poison will be used as in 1997: rotenone, which deprives gill-breathing fish of oxygen but doesn't harm other wildlife. A different method of spreading rotenone will be used so it disappears in a few weeks instead of months like last time, Martarano says. The department will spend $16 million, deploy 550 people over several weeks and dump 17,000 gallons of poison into the lake, the biggest operation in its history.

"We often hear people say, 'Well, we fish pike in Minnesota and it's great. So why not here,' " Martarano says. "The answer is they've been existing for thousands of years in that habitat and they're native there."

Biologists believe pike were illegally introduced years ago into Frenchman Lake east of here and eventually made their way to Lake Davis, Martarano says. Poison was used in Frenchman in the late 1980s, and pike haven't returned.

Trout thrive in Lake Davis because of its rich food habitat. Pike like the lake because it's relatively shallow and has lots of vegetation where it can reproduce and hide to ambush trout.

"People are pulling out lots of fish, trout 20-24 inches long," says Margie Braddy, host at a campground on the lake. "It's just a matter of knowing how to do it."

Others say the fishing hasn't been as good this year because the state canceled its annual spring restocking in anticipation of the poisoning.

The city and Plumas County already are campaigning to bring tourists back to the lake with advertisements in fishing and outdoor magazines.

"Last time, once the lake tested clear and the state restocked it, we joked that there were so many fish you could catch a limit on a hook with no bait," says city manager Jim Murphy. "I think that will excite the tourist and the fisherman."

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Zach Maciel, 31, from Elk Grove, Calif., launches his boat at Lake Davis before fishing with his father Dennis, 60, Saturday, Aug. 11.

Bob Morris, 49, from Portola, Calif., reels in a bit of slack from the belly of his fishing line on the bank of Lake Davis, Saturday, Aug. 11. In order to eradicate the non-native northern pike, Lake Davis is to be poisoned for the second time in little more than a decade.

By David Calvert for USA TODAY

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